Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Type as Image
When a letter or word takes on pictorial qualities beyond those that
define their form, they become images in their own right, and their semantic potential
is enormous. Words that are also pictures fuse several kinds of understanding together:
they are supersigns. As their meaning is assimilated through each perceptual fil-
ter—visual, emotional, intellectual—they assume the evocative stature of a symbol.
Understanding on each level is immediate, and a viewer's capacity to recall images
makes such word-pictures highly effective in recalling the verbal content associated
with them. As is true with so many aspects of strong typographic design, making type
into an image means defining a simple relationship between the intrinsic form of the
letters and some other visual idea. It is easy to get lost in the endless possibilities of type
manipulation and obscure the visual message or dilute it. A viewer is likely to perceive
and easily remember one strong message over five weaker ones—complexity is desir-
able, whereas complication is not. Type can be transformed into an image by using
a variety of approaches. Each provides a different avenue of exploration, and several
might be appropriate both to the desired communication and to the formal aspects of the
type itself.
Ornamentation
Typography can be transformed with ornaments—borders, dingbats, dots, lines,
and geometric shapes—either structural or purely decorative. If the ornaments are symbolic in
nature, they might take on the aspect of an inclusion and therefore be more strongly connected
to the meaning of the word. An ornament's style might affect the viewer's sense of the historical
context of the type; for example, a flourish or antique dingbat from a particular period.
Syntactic Deconstruction
Changing the visual relationships between the parts of a word or a
phrase is a deconstruction—the inherent structure of the word is called out or changed by being
deformed—and the fact that it is related to the nature of meaning makes it a syntactic deconstruc-
